Basilica in Assisi

The Basilica di San Francesco, Assisi: Giotto’s Frescoes and What Surrounds Them

On September 26, 1997, an earthquake struck central Italy and part of the vault of the Upper Church collapsed. Two Franciscan friars and two restoration workers died in the rubble. The frescoes of Cimabue’s Four Doctors of the Church shattered into 300,000 fragments that took years to reassemble. Giotto’s 28-panel life-of-Francis cycle, lower on the walls, survived with minor damage. The restoration work that followed took more than a decade and involved some of the most painstaking fresco conservation work of the 20th century. You are looking at a building that nearly ceased to exist.

Knowing this is useful context before you arrive. The Basilica di San Francesco is one of the most significant buildings in the history of Western art - the upper church’s Giotto cycle is regularly described as the moment when medieval painting became modern - but it has the additional weight of a place that was almost lost and was put back together by an international effort. The UNESCO inscription from 2000, covering the Historic Centre of Assisi, came partly in recognition of the restoration achievement.

The Lower Church

The Lower Church was begun in 1228, just two years after Francis’s death, and consecrated in 1253. It is built partially underground, darker and more intimate than the church above. The tomb of Saint Francis is in the crypt beneath the main altar, discovered during excavations in 1818 after the exact location had been deliberately hidden for centuries to prevent theft of the relics.

The frescoes here are by multiple hands: Cimabue, Pietro Lorenzetti, Simone Martini. The Lorenzetti frescoes in the left transept - depicting the Passion of Christ - are among the finest surviving works of Sienese Gothic painting. The colours are still vivid. Tourists often go directly to the upper church without spending adequate time here, which is a significant mistake.

The Upper Church

The Upper Church is the reason Assisi is on every art history syllabus. Giotto’s 28 panels depicting the life of Francis were completed in the late 1290s. What makes them revolutionary is not piety but technique: naturalistic figures with individual expressions, coherent architectural depth in the backgrounds, and a narrative coherence that had not previously appeared in religious fresco cycles. If you have any background in art history and you are standing in front of the Presepe di Greccio (Francis inventing the Christmas nativity scene) or the Sermon to the Birds, you are seeing the place where Italian Renaissance painting effectively began - approximately 100 years before the Renaissance is conventionally dated.

The post-earthquake restoration has left several panels with visible ghost marks where the surviving fragments were rejoined. This is not a flaw; it is the honest documentation of what happened.

Assisi Town

The town on the hillside above the basilica has been shaped around Francis’s story for 800 years. The Eremo delle Carceri - the hermitage Francis used for solitary prayer, 4km up Monte Subasio - is reachable by a 90-minute walk through oak forest. It is consistently less visited than the basilica and substantially more affecting as a physical experience of Francis’s world.

The Piazza del Comune at the town centre has a Roman temple (the Temple of Minerva, 1st century BC) whose facade has been incorporated into a church - a typical Italian archaeological palimpsest. The Rocca Maggiore above the town dates from 1174 and has views over the Valle Umbra and, on clear days, toward Perugia.

Where to Eat

Umbrian food is agricultural and direct: wild boar, pork, lentils from Castelluccio, black truffles from Norcia, and the local olive oil, which is notably peppery. Ristorante La Pallotta near Piazza del Comune serves traditional Umbrian cooking - pasta al tartufo, roasted meats - at honest prices around €15-25 per person. The restaurants immediately around the basilica entrance are aimed at pilgrim tour groups and are uniformly mediocre.

For Assisi’s best truffled pasta, Osteria al Camino Vecchio on Via San Gregorio is small and worth booking ahead.

Where to Stay

Hotel Subasio, built into the medieval fabric of the town immediately adjacent to the basilica, has been hosting guests since the 1860s - Mussolini stayed here, which is mentioned in the brochures with an ambivalence that is uniquely Italian. The position is unbeatable for early morning visits to the basilica before the tour groups arrive. Agriturismo properties in the valley below offer rural Umbria at lower prices with excellent food.

Practical Notes

Entry to the basilica is free. Guided tours are suspended during certain liturgical periods; in early 2026, tours were suspended from February 15 to April 6 due to the exposition of Francis’s relics. Dress code is enforced at the door: no bare shoulders, no shorts.

Visit the Lower Church first, when you arrive and before the larger groups. Spend at least 90 minutes in the upper church with Giotto. Come back in the late afternoon if you can - the light in the Upper Church at 16:30-17:00, when the angle is low and the colours deepen, is unlike anything you can arrange.